Taking Issue with The Big Issue

I sat down on the pavement next to him, and he smiled at me, setting aside the stack of Big Issues he had in his hand. I told him I was writing an article, and asked what he’d want people to know. “I guess I want to say we don’t expect everyone to buy a copy, but what we do expect is not to be ignored.” He sighed. “When people look down on you to the point when you’re not even worth a ‘no, thank you’, it’s like being trodden on. Like we’re not even here.”

They are, however, very much here, with a bare minimum of 15,000 people utterly homeless in London alone, and around 3000 nationally last year. National statistics are difficult to attain and the issue is far more widespread than most authorities acknowledge. With the housing and economic crisis, the numbers are set to rise, with 300,000 households already waiting for a social home in the capital.

The Big Issue was first established in 1991 by Gordon Roddick, a co-founder of the Body Shop, and A John Bird, who had slept rough and was experienced in the trade. They hoped that the current issues and entertainment magazine could serve as ‘a hand up, not a hand out’ by providing the homeless with a legitimate way to earn money and pull themselves out of poverty.

I spoke to Sam Allen, who started as a volunteer and is now Area Manager of the Big Issue in Bournemouth, and asked her why this was so important:

“Well, it’s illegal to beg. Also though, it’s very much an issue of self-worth. Give a guy 50p and he can buy a cup of tea, but selling the magazine, they can build up a regular customer base, and it motivates them in other aspects of their lives. It really does make a lasting difference.”

In 1995, the Big Issue Foundation was also set up to deal with the underlying causes of homelessness, and provide a means of supporting vendors as they worked away from the streets with services and referrals in areas such as housing, finance, health, education and employment. It receives minimal support from government, and unlike its vendors, does rely on the generosity of public donations to continue its work.

So how does it work? The Big Issue Company publishes weekly. Those who sell the Big Issue purchase them for 70p and sell for £1.50, earning 80p per copy. In order to become a Big Issue vendor (identified by the ID tag they wear,) a person must be able to prove they are homeless or vulnerably housed, go through an induction process and agree to a code of conduct. It’s hard to imagine, then, how some people can claim the Big Issue is ‘an easy way out’, or that those who sell it appear to be more in need than they actually are.

I asked one vendor how he would respond.

“There’s a degree of institutionalism to it, I won’t lie. They try to investigate your personal circumstances when you get ‘badged up’ but if some people take advantage, it’s a small minority; the majority are desperately in need, and have no other options.”

Additionally, the Big Issue does not reimburse vendors for magazines they fail to sell. In this way, they are motivated to carry out the job for profit, and must manage their finances carefully. It seems to me that this is the perfect embodiment of the pioneering ‘free-market’ attitudes those who criticise the welfare state and stereotype the Big Issue vendors pride themselves on.

“They work on the basis of being freelance, self-employed workers,” says Sam Allen. “They have to judge how long to work, what they can sell, consider weather conditions, and take responsibility for themselves. They’re not treated any differently because they’re homeless – they don’t want to be.”

I spoke to a Big Issue seller on the high street, and asked him how it all happened. “Four years ago, I lost my job and so my flat. I found myself alone in Bournemouth with a rucksack, £8 in my pocket. I was barely eating and I was sleeping under the pier. It was there that I met two other guys, they’d been sleeping rough for a while and they took me under their wing, marched me up the office and got me ‘badged up’.”

He was reluctant to give any detail about his descent into homelessness, and I realised that he was afraid of the prejudice he’d been subject to. No wonder he didn’t want me to print his name. I asked him if he’d had any abuse from the general public, and he laughed.

“Everyday!” he said, like it was a stupid question. “I don’t know one vendor who hasn’t been verbally or physically abused, there’s a lot of stigma around it, you know? And yeah, some vendors are recovering alcoholics, or used to be drug addicts, but for every one that was, I know another one that wasn’t. They’re always telling you, ‘get a proper job’ – you try to explain you can’t, that you’ve got no address, no home. They just don’t understand.”

Another vendor I spoke to became homeless when, having cared full-time for his ill mother, he was evicted from her council house upon her death. It sounds like something out of Oliver Twist; but it’s very much in the present, on our doorstep. Finally, I asked what it was like for him, and what he hoped for the future.

“You get bored, sitting around. You want to work, you want to make things better for yourself. The Big Issue is really all there is – without it, a lot of people would be forced into crime. I don’t want to do it the rest of my life, I’ve got hopes and dreams too. Someday I’d like to move to Cornwall, by the sea; start all over again.”